


Back to the Future

by Ayame_no_kimi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Leia gets the recognition she deserves, No I have not watched Back to the Future, Time Travel, canon-typical incest, this fic does not take itself seriously and neither should you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:14:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24194965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ayame_no_kimi/pseuds/Ayame_no_kimi
Summary: Leia travels back in time and saves her mother from dying. Then she saves the Galaxy.Look, I'm just very, very salty about a lot of things, okay?
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	Back to the Future

“Hi Leia, what have you got there?” Luke asks as he watches his sister heave a portable medic kit into something that looks like a telephone box, only light green and oddly futuristic.

“Time machine,” Leia huffs. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Where are you going?”

“The question is when I am going and the answer is, to the moment of our birth to save our mom.”

“Oh great, say hi to her for me.”

“Nope. Continuity protection. Can’t risk it.” With those words she climbs up the stairs into the box and slams the door shut.

Luke watches the box flicker, hum, and finally vanish into thin air, before he returns to his X-Wing and Han and Chewie to practice his lightsaber tricks, preparing for his final battle with the Emperor and Darth Vader.

***

Padme is in labour and in pain. Her doctors have basically given up on her, when Leia slams open the doors of her time machine and charges into the delivery room.

“Who are you-” one of the nurses begins, but Leia yeets her out of the way using the Force.

“This woman is not going to die under my watch,” she declares.

“Die?” Padme moans. “Die?” she shrieks. “Who said anything about dying?”

“I’m sorry, Senator Amidala, there is nothing more we can do for you,” the gynaecologist whimpers. “I’m afraid your body is not able to withstand-”

“Out with you losers!” Leia roars and Force-bullies the entire medical team from the room. Then she turns to Padme. “I know, the maternity health care system on Coruscant is incredibly backwards, but I have brought you some technology from another planet from another time. So trust me.”

She begins unpacking the medical kit she brought along, installs the delivery droid she bought from five hundred years into the future on a matriarchal planet with a maternal mortality rate of 0.0%, and lets it do its thing. Meanwhile, she moves her hand across Padme’s body.

“Here is the thing,” she explains while the droid gently and expertly delivers the babies. “This is not a natural childbirth complication. This is old Palpatine trying to murder you to make Anakin switch to the dark side. So I am going to save you.”

“Palpatine,” Padme groans. “I knew he was bad. But Ani? My sweet Ani? He’d never join the dark side, not in a million years.”

“Um, yeah, that’s a nice theory, but listen, you got one more bun up in that oven, so can you push a little bit more?”

Half an hour and one epidural later, Padme is resting exhausted, but alive, the two little babies lying with her in bed, snuggled up to her.

“Thank you,” she says to Leia. “Who are you and how did you know I was in danger?”

“I can’t answer everything yet, just know that you’re still in danger. I have protected you from Palpatine’s influence, but as long as he thinks you’re alive, you’re in danger. I’m afraid we’ll have to fake your death and get you to a safe location until the time is ripe for you to reappear.”

“Wait, what?”

“We must hurry. Give the babies their names and then we’ll set the plan in motion.”

“Right. Babies, names… um, I always liked Luke for a boy, so I’m going to go with Luke. And the girl… what do you think about Larissa?”

Leia flinches. Maybe Palpatine getting Padme out of the way wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

“A Larissa bullied me in school,” she says, instead of considering finishing the job old Pal couldn’t do. “I don’t like that name.”

“Really, what a shame.” Padme purses her lips while she strokes the fine fuzz on her new-born girl’s head. “Wait, what’s your name?”

“Leia,” Leia says.

“Leia. That’s a beautiful name. Would it be okay if I named my daughter after you? After all, I owe you my life.”

Leia smiles at her mother. “I would be honoured.”

She walks over to the doors, rips them open, and points at the first nurse she finds pacing in the hallway, chewing her nails. “You there. Come in.”

The nurse follows her inside the delivery room.

“Oh!” she exclaims as she sees Padme with the two new-borns. “You are all safe! What a miracle!”

“Yes, a miracle nobody is ever going to learn about.” Leia drags her to her time machine. “Help me get this out.”

Together they heave a bag, about the size of a person from the machine. Leia opens the zipper to reveal the corpse of a women the spitting image of Padme

The nurse screams out. “What is that?”

“A corpse, surgically altered to look like mo- like Senator Amidala,” Leia explains. “We are going to replace the living Padme with this corpse and then you will tell everybody that she and the babies have died.”

“Wait, what?” says Padme.

“Then you will take the two babies and hand them over to Obi Wan Kenobi,” Leia continues. “Do you understand?”

“Why can’t they stay with me?” Padme whimpers.

“Because they have a destiny to fulfil. Don’t worry, they will both be safe and the will both become strong, independent people who one day will overthrow the government. But for now, you need to let them go.”

It takes a bit of wailing and crying on Padme’s side and a bit more on the side of the new-borns, but eventually, the nurse leaves with the babies.

“Now get up,” Leia says.

Padme gawks at her. “I just pushed two human beings out of my vagina, you think I’ll just stand up and start walking? I’m going to take a nap.”

“If you nap, you die. You can sleep on our flight, but we really need to go.”

“Yeah, no, no can do.”

Eventually, Leia finds a wheelchair. Once Padme has safely transferred into the chair, she heaves the corpse onto the delivery table, locks her time machine, uses her minimizer to zap it to portable size, pockets it, and pushes Padme out of the operating room.

They reach the garage where Leia breaks into the first hyper-drive-compatible starship she finds, pushes Padme up the ramp, and jumps behind the wheel. Before Padme can voice any protest, she kicks the starship into drive mode and shoots straight into the air. They leave the planet and move into hyper lane.

“It’s going to take a couple of hours,” Leia says. “You should rest.”

“Where are we going?”

“To a teeny tiny colony almost in the Unknown Regions, where nobody will ever look for you.”

“You realize you sound exactly like a kidnapper would, right? Why can’t I go to see Ani?”

“Because it’s too late. Palpatine has lied to him and shown him images of your death. He thinks you and the children have died.”

“But I can tell him it was a lie! There is still hope for him.”

“There is, but not right now. He already made the first step into the darkness. You cannot un-choose his path for him.”

“So I should just give up on my husband?”

“Mo- Padme.” Leia turns around and lays a hand on the weak, terribly pale woman’s fingers. “I am saving you, because I don’t want to give up on Anakin, but for now, you need to trust me that this is the only way I can protect you and save him. Can you trust me?”

“I don’t even know you.”

“I am the woman who saved your life when everyone else was ready to let you die. And one day you will come to realize, that no one in the world loves you more than I do.”

Padme looks at Leia, doubt and fear still written across her face, but finally she nods, squeezes Leia’s hand and closes her eyes.

***

They reach the tiny, hidden colony at the outskirts of the known system seventeen hours after they fled from Coruscant. In the meantime, Anakin has decimated the padawans and Palpatine has given Order 66 to wipe out the Jedi. Leia stays off the grid and keeps flying on.

Padme wakes up when Leia brings the starship down into the atmosphere of the planet that will make Padme’s new home. “Are we there yet?”

“Yes. How do you feel?”

“Like I ejected two babies from my belly and nearly died.”

“Here.” Leia rummages through the medic bag and hands Padme a bottle of pills. “Take one. You can take them once a day, they’ll speed up the healing process and help you get back on your feet.”

“I doubt there’s a thing in the Galaxy that will make me forget I just gave birth.” Padme swallows the pill. “Holy stars.”

“Yeah, I hear it’s pretty effective.”

“I think I’m ready to rule Naboo again. Let’s get Palpatine right now, I want to kick his butt.”

Leia snorts. “Can’t. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait a couple of years.”

“Why?”

“Paradox. If I tell you too much or intervene too much, who knows what will go wrong? So you have to stay here, hidden, without leaving the planet, until I come and get you.”

They exit the starship and take survey of the earthen brown huts with their reed roofs. The populace has gathered to greet them.

Padme turns to Leia. “How long?”

“A while.”

“Give me a time frame.”

“Around thirty years.”

“Thirty-” Padme clasps a hand to her mouth. “Why so long?”

“One day you’ll know. Please, whatever happens in the Galaxy, whatever you learn, don’t leave this place. If Palpatine finds out you’re still alive before I can return, he will undoubtedly kill you. I have changed your Force signature, so he won’t recognize you, but it only works as long as everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“Oh, you’re a Jedi, too?”

“No. I’m just a girl.”

With a faint shimmer in her eyes, Padme picks up Leia’s hand and strokes it. “Is there anything I can do to thank you? You could stay a little?”

Leia looks in her mother’s eyes, moved for a moment to give in, to test the brittle weave of time a little further and give herself another hour. Then she realizes what is going on.

_Blazes, she is coming on to me. Mom, wait! Oh, but Stars, is this where I got it from? Is it a family thing?_

She extricates her hand from her mother’s grip. “I’m afraid I have to go. Wait for my return.”

Before she turns to leave, she catches Padme’s eyes again, the lonely, confused, sad look in there. Within a couple of hours her life has been turned upside down, her husband ripped from her, her Galaxy descended into darkness, her new-born babies sent away to fulfil a destiny unknown to her. What a cruel, selfish decision Leia made, to play with fate and keep this woman alive because she wanted a mother.

She runs, hugs Padme tightly, buries her face in her shoulder. “I’ll be back. I swear, I’ll be back and I’ll explain everything to you. Trust me, one day you’ll understand.”

Before Padme can ask again, she breaks the hug and flees.

***

“All right,” Luke says. “So you and Han go to Endor and fight the troops and I’ll go to the Death Star and face Darth Vader and the Emperor.”

“Hell no,” Leia says. “You and Han take Endor. I got Vader and Pal covered.”

“But I’m the Jedi,” Luke says and twirls his lightsaber in mid-air as proof.

“And I am the one with an actual idea of how to stop Vader. Besides, I’m probably three times as strong as you,” Leia answers and snatches the lightsaber away from her brother, directing it via the Force towards the fruit bowl, switching it on and quartering a melon that she brings over, all without moving an inch from her chair.

Luke sulks, but he does not protest. “Fine. Han and me then.”

Leia flies out to the remote little colony where two days ago for her and thirty years ago for her mother she left Padme to hide from the Emperor. The place has barely changed. The same earthen brown huts with reed roofs, the same calm, quiet ambience, far remote from all the turmoil the Galaxy had to go through for the past thirty years.

As soon as her starship lands, one of the huts opens and a woman steps outside. She has aged. Grey streaks her dark hair and wrinkles draw around her eyes and mouth. She has filled out, too, and maybe shrunk a bit.

The moment the woman sees Leia, her jaw drops. She hurries to her, takes her hand, and stares up in her face. For a moment Leia simply looks back. She has seen pictures of Padme Amidala in her youth, of the beautiful, elegant queen and senator. She has forced herself not to upset the balance further and visit over time, watching her age. Now for the first time she knows what it is like to look her mother in the face as she was supposed to all her live.

“What happened?” Padme whispers. “You haven’t aged a day.”

“Two actually,” Leia smiles and wipes a tear from her eye.

“How can that be? The last time I saw you…”

“The last time you saw me, I was a tiny baby, mom.”

Padme frowns. Her eyes flit around Leia’s face, trying to make sense of her words. They widen as understanding dawns on her.

“Leia,” she whispers.

“Hi mom.”

“Oh, my girl, my beautiful girl…”

Leia grips both of her hands and squeezes them. “Are you ready to come home?”

“Yes.”

For the first twenty minutes of their flight, Padme does nothing but stare at her, silently, from time to time reaching out with her hand to stroke her cheek. Then she demands answers. Leia tells her the story of her adoption, of her youth and adolescence, of Alderaan, of the Rebellion.

“I heard whispers,” Padme says. “I wanted to join, but the villagers were quite strict. They said you had insisted they keep you safe, so they wouldn’t let me leave.”

“I had to. If you had changed the course of history, chances are I never would have reached the point where I went back in history to save your life. Can’t risk a paradox.”

“So what changed now?”

“Now we’re back at the point when time is undecided. Can’t ruin anything now with pesky paradoxes.”

“And Luke? Where is he?”

“He’s all right. Grew up safely, came to rescue me once. He’s battling the Empire on Endor.”

“Can he use the Force as well?”

“Oh yes, though he’s not as good as me.”

“Oh, I bet he looks like Ani. What about Ani?”

“Dad? You don’t know?”

“No. Is he dead?”

Leia looks away from the console to her mother. “Mom, he’s Darth Vader.”

Padme clasps both hands to her mouth. “Impossible!”

“I told you he made the switch to the dark side.”

“But he- he is way too kind to be such a terrible monster! What happened to him?”

“Honestly, your guess is as good as mine, but we’re on our way to meet him. You should ask him yourself.”

“Honestly, Leia, what is going on in the Galaxy?”

“A lot.” Leia looks back at the viewport. “But it’s all going to be over soon.”

“Wait. Didn’t I come on to you?”

Leia laughs. “Yeah, you did.”

“Oh, my own daughter! I didn’t know!”

“It’s okay. I kissed Luke once, before I knew he was my brother.”

“You did what?”

“It kind of runs in the family.”

“That doesn’t sound reassuring.”

The hours fly by. Soon they approach the Death Star. Before they dock, Leia pulls out a black veil and hands it to Padme.

“Put this on. I want to surprise him.”

Padme complies.

They exit the vehicle and walk along the rows of stormtroopers pointing their blasters at them, while Leia, chin raised, leads Padme towards the tall man clad in black, waiting for them at the elevator.

“What are you doing here?” Darth Vader asks through his breathing tube. “Where is Luke Skywalker?”

“I am Leia Organa, Luke’s sister. He won’t be joining us tonight. Instead, I will-”

“You?” Vader does a step back. “You are Luke’s sister? But that means-”

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m your daughter. Hi dad.”

“But that cannot be! You have always defied me! You are obnoxious, impertinent, pugnacious-”

“I think I got that from my mom, actually.”

“You cannot know that. Your mother died when you were-”

“Actually-”

“You are lying! You are not my daughter! Luke does not have a sister.”

“Actually-”

“Ani.” Padme steps forward and lifts the veil. “Don’t talk to your own daughter like that.”

Silence falls and drags on way too long. Finally, in the smallest of voices, barely audible over the hissing breathing apparatus, “Padme?”

“Oh, I know. I have changed. But so have you, I see.”

“You are… how is this possible?”

“Palpatine lied to you,” Leia says. “He tricked you into joining the dark side. He preyed on your deepest, darkest fears and tried to murder mom, but she didn’t die. She merely hid.”

Vader raises both hands. Padme flinches back, but then she stands strong as he holds her by the arms.

“Oh…”

“Ani, how could you do this? Join the Emperor? Kill the Jedi? Destroy the planet where your own daughter grew up? Kill Obi Wan? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“I… yes.”

“I expected better from you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should have come to me and trusted me. And you should not have joined the murderous, oppressive regime that obviously tried to kill me.”

“Padme, what do I do?”

Padme raises her chin. “You destroy the Emperor, Ani. And then you come back home with me.”

“Oh. Okay.” Vader turns around. “You should stay back. This is not going to be pretty.”

“Blazes no,” Leia says. “I want to watch.”

“Oh, me too,” Padme says.

They ride up the elevator together.

***

“Ah, young Skywalker,” Palpatine cackles as they enter his hall. “Have you come to fight m- who are you? Who is she? Wait, what is she doing here?”

He points at Leia, then at Padme and if it were possible for a man the colour of pasteurized milk to grow any paler, he would.

“Hello Palpatine,” Padme says. “Remember me?”

“And I’m her daughter,” Leia says. “Dad, get him.”

She and Padme sit back and watch Darth Vader and Palpatine chase each other through the hall for a couple of hours. Palpatine zaps lightning, Vader tries to choke him. They fight. They bicker. Apparently Vader has suppressed a lot of rage throughout the decades that he now finally gets to air.

“And by the way,” he shouts as he hurtles a chair after Pal, “achieving immortality does not protect you from armpit sweat! Deodorant is your friend!”

Leia pulls a couple of chocolate bars from her fanny pack, breaks one in half, and hands Padme the larger part.

“And if you think you’re being sneaky by calling me a Taun-Taun with asthma behind my back to my minions, it does get back to me!” Vader yells and redirects a lightning bolt with his bare hands. “And I don’t care if you like the pink sprinkles best, if I buy ten doughnuts, six of which have pink sprinkles and you eat all six with sprinkles, that makes you an asshole! I wanted at least one of those for myself!”

“I feel like I’m really getting to know my dad for the first time,” Leia remarks dryly and licks chocolate from her fingers.

“I feel like I’m getting to know a completely new Anakin,” Padme says with a shudder. “I’m not sure I can view him as a sexually viable candidate ever again.”

“Gross, mom.”

“You kissed your brother. Don’t tell me what’s gross.”

They watch on.

Finally, Vader pins the Emperor to one of the pillars, lightsaber at his throat. Shoulders heaving, he slams Palpatine against the durosteel a couple of times.

Leia stands up. “What are you waiting for? Finish him.”

“No,” Vader says without letting go of Palpatine. “I do not wish to kill anymore. I am not giving in to my anger ever again, so I will let you live, but you will live out your life in solitude and-”

 _Blam_.

A large, gaping hole has opened up in Palpatine’s head. He sags down. When Vader lets go of him, he drops to the floor like a sack of flour.

Vader turns around to Leia, who is standing with her blaster in hand, barrel still smoking. “What did you do?”

“Killed him.”

“But he was protected by the Force! You couldn’t have killed him that easily-”

“Oh, I could. He might be the Emperor, but I am Leia fucking Organa. The Force bows to me and me alone.” (AN: stop flaming you prepz, she’s not a Mary Sue!!)

“Oh, thank the stars that’s over,” Padme says, hand over her heart. “Can we go home now?”

***

They join the party on Endor. Luke and Han have already gathered the Ewoks for some singing, dancing, and drinking. Leia introduces her brother to their mother. Tears flow.

Much, much later, she sits down next to Darth Vader while Luke is dancing with Padme. “So what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know yet,” Vader responds. “I never expected to see your mother again. Where did you find her?”

“I didn’t find her. I travelled back in time, protected her from Palpatine, saved her life, safely delivered us, and then hid her somewhere safe to get her out today.”

Vader is silent for a few minutes.

“You have much of your mother in you,” he finally offers.

“Well. Thanks to me, I now have the chance to find out if that’s true.”

“You are an exceptional child.”

“Thank you.”

“Luke wants me to revive the Jedi order.”

“Are you going to do that?”

“Would you join us if I did?”

“No.” She stretches out her legs. “There is still much turmoil in the Galaxy. I have to travel around a bit, clean up the shit the Emperor left behind. I prefer to do that with a blaster instead of a lightsaber.”

“You would make a good padawan.”

“Nah. I already know more about the Force than either of you. I don’t need any training.”

“I was thinking,” Vader says, “if I start a new order, I don’t want it to be Jedi. Or Sith. I want an order that does not land on a planet, see a little slave boy with his slave mother, choose to free the boy because they can use him, and leave the mother behind to be exploited and murdered, while they isolate the boy and never give him the chance to help his mother or even talk to her until he seeks her out himself and finds her dying. I don’t want an order that takes a traumatized child and shames that child for having feelings and forces the child to suppress all that fear and anger and sadness until it doesn’t know how to handle its emotions anymore and explodes. If I were to found an order, I would make it one that allows children to be children and to be human. To form attachments, to express anger and fear, to admit that they are fallible even when they have become masters. That’s an order I’d want to lead.”

Leia’s mouth twitches. “Maybe I can get you some funding.”

The fires flicker. Padme has switched to dancing with Chewbacca, who swings her around like a nunchaku. Luke is dancing with Han in a tight embrace.

“Is my son snogging that handsome hobo?” Vader asks.

“Yep,” Leia sighs. “He is. He got dibs, I suppose.”

Vader stands up. “I think I better go rescue your mother. Chewie is an overenthusiastic dancer.”

He hasn’t left for long when Luke takes his place next to Leia.

“Didn’t take you long to get over me,” she says.

“Yeah, I need to tell you something. I- I think I might be bisexual.”

“No kidding,” she deadpans.

“You’re not shocked?”

“Luke, you told me we were twins after I snogged you. There is nothing you could tell me about your sexuality that could ever shock me anymore.”

Luke harrumphs. “So are you going to join dad and me in our new Jedi order?”

“No.” She closes her eyes and bounces her leg. “I think I am going to take our mom to Hosnian Prime and install her as the leader of the New Republic.”


End file.
